


If You Forget Me

by wishbynight (TrappingLightningBugs)



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Far Future, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26678020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrappingLightningBugs/pseuds/wishbynight
Summary: Another thousand years pass on Etheria. Magic has grown scarce, and Catra, unaware of her past life, works for a company that tracks and harvests the magic from soulmate bonds. She doesn’t need to think about the connections she’s severing; after all, she’s gotten on just fine without a soulmate.Then, she meets Adora.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	If You Forget Me

_I want you to know_   
_one thing._   
  
_You know how this is:_   
_if I look_   
_at the crystal moon, at the red branch_   
_of the slow autumn at my window,_   
_if I touch_   
_near the fire_   
_the impalpable ash_   
_or the wrinkled body of the log,_   
_everything carries me to you,_   
_as if everything that exists,_   
_aromas, light, metals,_   
_were little boats_   
_that sail_   
_toward those isles of yours that wait for me._

_\- Pablo Neruda_

Catra stood at the edge of the ninth story balcony, staring into the seventh-floor apartment of her current target. Her port screen told her one Wisteria — 38, six-foot tall, plant humanoid, female-presenting — lived there currently. Red twined through the brightly lit living room, visible due to Catra’s port-glass’s overlay.

This wasn’t her first job in Bright Moon, but it was the second since the boss man relocated her from Arid Plains. The night air was more humid than she was used to, and she shot a disproving glare at her long sleeves. An adjustment for next time.

The glow in the apartment brightened as the lights clicked off. This would be the moment; Catra had gotten a second sense for when Diodes were about to connect, could track the fluctuations in the currents of energy that surrounded them.

She touched the button on the side of the glasses and the screen slid back into the volume of her hair, leaving her line of sight free. She needed to get down to street level.

Pressing a button on her wrist cuff, the microphone at her collar turned on, and she comm’d her partner. Scorpia held the flanking position from the apartment building across the road, and the apartment’s exit onto street level was visible for her.

“Target is moving,” Catra said. “Keep an eye on the plant woman, let me know which direction she goes.”

“You got it, boss,” Scorpia said.

Catra took the stairs down, knowing better than to hope the two elevators would be going the way she needed on a Friday evening. On the way, her earpiece squeaked with a few mutterings of surprise from Scorpia’s end.

“Your mic is still on,” Catra said, mildly annoyed.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry. Little buttons, hard to press.”

Scorpia laughed, and her audio cut out.

Catra didn’t know whether to laugh or groan, so she bit it back, reaching the first floor with people only passing her once she reached the first three floors. You could always depend on people’s laziness.

She sauntered onto the sidewalk with her hands in her pockets, drawing out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Catra didn’t like to smoke; the scent irritated her nose, but it was a good reason to loiter without drawing attention.

Lighting it, she took her first inhale, the hardest of the lot, and exhaled, already thinking past Scorpia and this plant lady to the late dinner waiting for her once she confirmed her capture.

“She’s headed left, boss,”

Catra dropped the cigarette without any further provocation, leaving it smoking against the pavement.

The plant woman — Wisteria — walked eastbound, her ultimate destination the neighborhood’s closest convenience store. Wisteria ducked her head, pushing inside the bright space with a tingle of the bell.

“How fast can you get the car to my location?” Catra murmured.

“About two minutes.”

“Perfect. Park about a block back. We don’t want anyone inside the store seeing anything.”

Scorpia responded in the affirmative.

Catra walked past the store then looped around, looking to the casual observer like someone out for an evening walk. She adjusted the dark ball cap that shadowed her face and followed Wisteria with an easy lope. If she timed this correctly, she could reach the plant-woman when Scorpia’s car reached its mark.

Wisteria walked with her arms close to her body, likely holding whatever she bought. Her slick length of cornflower yellow hair twisted behind her in a breeze Catra couldn’t feel. There was very little muscle mass to the plant woman, though she was taller than Catra by quite a bit. This would have to be a victory due to surprise, rather than brute strength.

“Scorpia,” she murmured, “are you in position?”

No response. She tried again, voice taunt.

They reached the designated position, Catra about a yard back and closing in fast; no car darkened the side of the road.

“Scorpia!”

A car screeched around a corner, Catra almost able to smell the burning rubber, then pulled up _hard_ next to them.

Wisteria slowed, probably concerned, when the backseat door flew open, and Catra seized her chance.

She ran up behind Wisteria, grabbed her, and _shoved_ her into the open door, the woman letting out a shocked cry. Her height worked against Catra, but another hand on the plant-woman’s shoulder folded her into the car before she could process.

“Hey—!”

Catra kicked out her ankles and finished closing her inside, slamming the door and thanking her lucky stars that the backseat doors automatically locked.

She opened the passenger door and jumped in.

“What was that?” Catra demanded, "Why weren’t you in place?”

Scorpia blushed, rubbing the back of her head with one of her pincers.

“Sorry Catra! This part of town on a Friday is pretty busy. There was a group of drunk girls in the road, and they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, let me tell you — the one was crying about her boyfriend—”

“Right, I got it.” Catra massaged her temples, forcing a calming breath.

Fists pounded on the window dividing them. Scorpia jumped, as usual, and Catra didn’t. Instead, she pressed the purple button on the dashboard, releasing Entrapta’s latest batch of knock-out gas. It was brewed weak, to Wisteria’s registered stats, and within minutes, as Scorpia navigated them through town, the banging slowed to nothing.

The glass was a two-way mirror, and Catra turned around in her seat to check on the plant-woman. Wisteria was curled up partially on the bench below the mirror, her legs sprawled on the floor. It was a horribly uncomfortable position if she was faking, but even if she was, the windows of the backseat were so dark, she would never know where they had taken her.

On a whim, Catra flicked on her port glass and flipped to the setting that would allow her to see the red energy again. Its glow faded from its brilliance in the apartment, but it was still twined lovingly around Wisteria. Perhaps she would have passed the other end of her connection that night, or the next.

Diodes, as the name suggested, came in pairs, their nature only given away when it was time for them to meet. The energy that produced, according to Entrapta, was like nothing machines could replicate. Problem was, Entrapta hadn’t yet found a way to track “first contact,” and once it was made, the energy was too insular to harvest. It would kill the host, and their organization wasn’t that desperate yet.

After Scorpia, admittedly, had to maneuver around a lot of people in certain parts of town, they were able to pick up speed once they were on the highway out of town. This part always gave Catra chills, though she couldn’t pin if they were good or bad. The bypass over the Whispering Woods was just below the clouds, leaving the towering trees untouched. Some were even large enough that their glowing leaves fluttered onto the road in the autumn.

Scorpia chattered about her day. Catra listened, a bit — enough to comment, but not enough to keep her from daydreaming about dinner. She propped her feet up on the dashboard, adjusting her stupid seatbelt.

It was another half an hour of driving to reach the base. Prime Corp had bases all over Etheria, and many more across the galaxy, but Catra had operated out of the Ruby Hills base since they first hired her. She’d grown up in the city proper, but the base was out on the outskirts. Close enough to home to see the city lights, far enough that no one knew her.

She chanced a look at Scorpia, still smiling out the windshield, and swallowed down the softness that almost came out.

Nothing relevant happened for the rest of the drive; they gassed Wisteria again when they approached the loading dock, guards advancing to handcuff her wrists and ankles together.

They patted Wisteria down for weapons, careful with Catra’s eyes on them, and cleared her for entry into the building. Catra and Scorpia accompanied them on their walk to Entrapta’s lab, half to hear the scientist’s report, and half because Entrapta would summon them for questions if they didn’t go voluntarily.

Her lab looked far too much like an old interrogation room, with its dark metal and bright, surgical lights. Entrapta hovered around her five-computer setup, safety goggles up in her hair. When the door slid open, she wheeled around, beaming.

“You caught her! Ooh, she’s a bit taller than the reports indicated.”

Without so much as a “thank you,” Entrapta rushed over, her prehensile hair carrying her most of the way, before depositing her on her feet. The guards had to work around her to strap Wisteria to the bed.

“I see her reservoir of energy was very active today. She’s probably only a day or so out from making her connection…”

After that observation, Entrapta steady stream of commentary went far over Catra’s head. She watched her friend work, exhaustion beginning to set in.

“How much gas did you give her?” Entrapta entered the portion of the examination where Catra and Scorpia were needed. She asked how much they banged her up, the times that they gassed the woman, and other minute details that would interfere with the extraction of her magic.

Catra answered in bored, clipped answers, sitting up on another of Entrapta’s operating tables, not thinking too hard about that.

It was over quickly that night. Their retrieval of the plant woman had gone seamlessly all things considered.

“There’s a lot of magic here,” Entrapta said, voice reverent. “It must be an older connection.”

She wheeled around to face Catra, eyes sparkling, “And you said the glow got brighter when she went outside?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Then her other Diode must be in the city! You have to find her. This kind of energy could power our machines for _years!”_

Catra winced, already anticipating Hordak’s angrier repetition of Entrapta’s sort-of order, turning it into a true mission. Before that happened, she was getting a full night of sleep.

Sighing, she turned to exit Entrapta’s lab.

“—wildcat?”

“Huh?” Catra lifted her head upon hearing her nickname.

“I said, are you eating with us tonight, or are you going upstairs?”

The sound of Wisteria’s pleas faded as they walked to the elevator.

“I’ll eat here tonight,” she decided, “since Entrapta isn’t on kitchen duty.”

“Her food isn’t bad,” Scorpia protested. “Just tiny.”

Catra scoffed as they stepped into the elevator, keeping her tail close.

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time she tries to serve us ramen in serving spoons.”

—

Dinner was a quiet, gentle affair. Scorpia chatted at her, reliving their successful capture of the plant woman. She tried mimicking the drunken college students, making her voice a little deeper and doing Scorpia’s idea of sarcasm.

“Streets are for walking, right?” Scorpia broke character, laughing at her own imitation.

Catra groaned. Without Entrapta there to engage with Scorpia’s stories, Catra was often at the brunt of Scorpia’s full enthusiasm, something that ultimately wore on her after a day of work. The dynamic worked best with three, Catra able to input when she wanted, rather than to keep Scorpia out of one of her nervous spirals.

At times, she reminded Scorpia to eat, who would take horrifyingly large bites, then smile at her. Back when they first met, Scorpia used to tear up when Catra would comment that her food was getting cold.

Scorpia — like her, and like Entrapta —came to Prime Corp. out of high school and used the on-site housing. Catra never asked. She didn’t want to tell, but of course Scorpia asked, and Entrapta answered. That was their dynamic in a nutshell, and here it was, still the same, six years later.

She waved off a game of cards when Scorpia asked, promising she would go to Lonnie’s next stupid party, but not on a Tuesday night. Knowing her luck, Hordak would have a new mission for her and she would be hungover as shit. His face was ugly enough while sober; no need to intentionally scar herself for life.

Taking the elevator up from the mess hall, Catra stopped at the ninth floor, exiting and walking the short distance to her room. Her nightly ritual soothed her so much that by the time she laid down to sleep, she didn’t even manage to browse the Net before dropping off into unconsciousness.

—

Just as expected; when she turned on her port glass over breakfast, a message pulsed a distracting red in the corner of her vision. Catra groaned and gestured to read it, finding a summons from Hordak for a new mission. Last time she’d found a source that big, they gave her a week off. By this time, they must have realized more Catra equaled more energy. The “benefits” of being good at her job.

Catra swirled her coffee mug, watching the foam disappear, pretending breakfast could delay her being deployed again.

“Catra!”

She shrieked and jumped, hitting both knees off the table.

“You’re jumpy this morning,” Entrapta said, head tilted to the side. “Too much coffee? Or did you find my smelling salts again?”

“That was _one time.”_ Catra rubbed her temples. “Do you remember our talk about announcing yourself before dropping in on people?”

Entrapta crossed to the other side of the table, frowning. “I said your name. Isn’t that enough of an ‘announcement’?”

Instead of answering, Catra said, “I’m getting a new assignment today. What gives? Why is Hordak in such a hurry?”

“Huh? Oh, well, it’s important.” Entrapta shifted to sit, gaze somewhere on the ceiling. She bit her lower lip, likely weighing how much to tell her. “It’s — we need the energy to run the cities.”

“Yes,” Catra forced her voice to stay patient, “but this is rushed. That means either the target is critical, or moving _me_ is critical.”

Entrapta’s hands clenched together, the worn brown gloves straining at the knuckles. As soon as Scorpia would notice, she would buy Entrapta a new pair.

“Is it me?” Catra asked, “Am I getting moved to a different base?”

“What? No!”

Smart as she was, Entrapta was horrible with secrets.

“So, it’s the target. What’s special about them?”

As expected, Entrapta glanced around, like Hordak would be lurking over her shoulder, then admitted, “This target…it has the kind of energy I’ve never seen before.” Entrapta’s voice was faint with longing. “The readings are so strong that operatives have been picking it up across three city blocks!”

“If it’s that wide, you’ll need more than just me and Scorpia.” Pieces connected, and Catra asked, “How many people are on this?”

“Ten different agents.”

Hordak likely didn’t tell her to keep that to herself, or Entrapta stopped caring, because her eyes were sparkling again.

“Each of you has a likely target.”

“And you’re worried because the energy is so strong that it will go off any day.”

“Precisely!” Entrapta cackled, please despite the by all means concerning constraints on this mission.

No longer hungry, Catra stood from the table, a smile curling at her lips. If the mark was that important, that enormous, she could ask for almost anything: two months vacation, a major raise.

A space craft.

Forcing her thoughts away from that last, whispered wish, Catra shook her head and asked, “I hope you’re the one who placed me.”

“Now, Catra, you know I have to be fair.” Entrapta’s grin, unnerving as always, reassured her nevertheless. “You’re stationed in the office building on thirty-second: the Peace building.”

Entrapta rose from the chair with a thoughtful frown.

“I’m not supposed to tell you any more than that. Go see Hordak!”

Catra debated prodding her further despite the fact, but figured she had to see Hordak eventually. Getting it out of the way would shorten any present scoldings, at least.

—

Hordak’s Ruby Hills office was on the first floor, near the lobby. He reported to three different bases throughout the week, and the Bright Moon office often sat empty. There was a set schedule, but he tended to move independent of it. Entrapta was the best gauge for his location, and often the reason for his location. While he’d been working for Prime Corp, rumors suggested, since high school, he often deferred to Entrapta, the prodigy. Other men might have been threatened by her skill, but every time Catra tried to ask about it, Entrapta would just blink at her.

“No, Hordak doesn’t say things like that,” she would say. Or, “He actually brought it to me!” or: “He’s not that bad, Catra!”

But, “not that bad” didn’t apply when Hordak talked to her without Entrapta present. Most of the time, Hordak was a real dick.

Like now — Catra knocked at the unassuming door in the pleasantly lit egg-shell colored hallway, and stepped into miserable lair number 2, the one without the sharp and spinning bits. What made this room threatening was the sheer austerity of it; like, if he murdered you, they could steam clean the room without removing the furniture.

“Come in.”

Catra obliged, tail flickering back and forth before she forced it still.

He sat behind the security panels desk today, off to the left from his “official business” desk, which would have reassured her if he didn’t stand upon her entry.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked.

Hordak waved for her to follow, and he sat at the looming monstrosity at the center of the room, the distance between his chair and hers arctic. The full-sized computer only took up a third of the solid wood desk, leaving the center clear for him to examine Catra. In that quiet, Catra could hear the creak of his metal joints as he shifted.

“We have a new assignment for you,” he said. “Prime Corp recognizes that you’ve just completed a mission, and desires to know if this would compromise your new assignment.”

Catra rolled her eyes. If she admitted it might, it would lead to a pay cut — and maybe even an expulsion back to Ruby Hills without Scorpia and Entrapta.

“I’ll expect due compensation for my time,” she said, purely to watch Hordak’s eyes narrow. “I assume I’m starting today or tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. The ID you will need for your observation is difficult to attain. Today, you will be reviewing the information we have for you.”

He proceeded to tell her everything she’d gotten from Entrapta, but this time with visual aid:

The Peace building, so named after the cease-fire treaty signed in that very spot by Aldenians and the Etherians, was a combination of both architecture types from three centuries ago. But, because the people of Bright Moon insisted on conducting business within it, modern amenities spiked from the beautiful old architecture. Air conditioning vents were painted to blend in with the friezes and ornate windowsills, and glass elevators flanked the building like bookends. It was almost ugly-looking, but every time Catra tried to pass judgement, something stopped her.

“Review all entry and exit points. They are located in this file.”

Hordak talked her through procedures, smiling a little when he informed her that she would be posing as an intern.

“I’m going to be _running coffee_ for the person we’re kidnapping?” she snapped.

“It is not kidnapping,” Hordak snarled. “Watch your language, or I will ensure you are running after our laboratory’s janitors for a month.”

He didn’t actually have the authority for that, but he could keep her off jobs and ruin her pay, so she crossed her arms and shut up. His propensity for over-the-top threats could be funny when it was directed to someone other than her.

“Think for a moment,” he said. "who sees more of the employees than the interns?”

Catra almost said “the boss,” just to be petty, but Hordak was proof that the boss attempted and could often get away with seeing their employees as little as possible.

Hordak recaptured her attention as he slid a fat file over to her. “We have made your job even easier. Our source was able to provide us with the staff’s profiles, which are used for entry into the building.”

Catra bit back a groan. She opened the file to the image of a washed-out deer-man, his upturned nose and dappled cheeks faded from lack of sun.

“What’s the time frame for investigation?” Catra asked.

“As I said, this energy is potent like nothing we’ve ever seen.” Hordak’s hand clenched into a fist. “A week is likely too long, and two weeks is unacceptable.”

She stopped flipping on the page of a genderless insectoid immigrant from a neighboring planet, eyes narrowing.

“There are several hundred people in this building, and you expect me to find and extract the right one in a week without giving myself away? Are you insane?”

“Watch yourself. Despite your constant insubordination, you are one of the best agents we have at the moment,” Hordak said, sounding like the words tasted foul. “Exposure is not a concern. We are willing to keep you off the roster for months, paid, if you are able to find this source.”

Catra’s heart rate skyrocketed. It was just as expected, but better. If Hordak deigned to tell her this instead of leaving her guessing, this was serious. It was the biggest job she might ever have and possibly the last one she would _have_ to do. Extraction would be a pain and a half in the fourteen floors of the Peace building, but Catra supposed that’s why they were throwing subtlety out the window.

She flipped the page absently, eyes shifting over the woman’s cropped pink hair, low lit with violet. It was lovely and called to mind images of the Bright Moon queens of old, despite that this 22-year-old’s chubby cheeks made her look sixteen.

“Is Scorpia available to play getaway driver for me?”

Catra flipped the page, and the reality of the boon sunk in. It was like the lights in Hordak’s dim room brightened, the lines of the photo sharpening. This woman smiled at the camera with a bit of a nervous pinch to her blonde eyebrows, her features caught between the softness of youth and the sharpness of a working adult. For some reason, Catra imagined brash laughter, the kind half surrendered to a listener.

“Scorpia will be working for the entirety of thirty-second,” Hordak said. “Be sure not to distract her. You are only one prong of many.”

Wanting to retort, the words on the tip of her tongue, Catra said “yeah, yeah,” the remainder dying as she reached to turn the page of her employee reports. Almost against her will, her eyes slid from the blonde woman’s face to her basic info.

Adora. What a strange name.

Catra turned the page.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic in a long time, and my first for the She-Ra fandom. I love this show so much, I was nervous to write this. What can you add to perfection, right? But, this was so much fun to write, so I hope you all enjoy it as well.
> 
> All comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.


End file.
